Liza Grandia

Associate Professor, UC Davis since 2012.            

B.A. summa cum laude, Yale University, 1996
Ph.D. in Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley, 2006
Postdoc in the Program in Agrarian Studies, Yale University, 2006-07

UC Davis affiliations:

• Director of the Indigenous Research Center of the Americas (IRCA)
• Associate director of the Native American Language Center (NALC)
• Affiliated with Community and Regional Development (CRD), International Agricultural Development (IAD), Hemispheric Institute of the Americas (HIA), and Human Rights Studies (link)

Research interests:

Q'eqchi' Maya; Belize & Guatemala; peasants, and agrarian change; pesticides; toxics in everyday life; corporate trade and globalization; foreign aid and empire; biodiversity conservation; political ecology and environmental justice; the politics of cancer; and theories of the commons.

DOWNLOAD her CV (updated July 2022)

Contact:

• Office:  2419 Hart Hall, please be fragrance free when you visit
• Tel: 530-752-0357, Fax: 530-752-7097​
• Email: lgrandia@ucdavis.edu
• Skype: lizagrandia
• Student hours, via telephone: sign up here via Calendly, Thursdays, 4-6 pm 

Awards

• Teaching Award, 2022, College of Letters and Science, Division of Humanities, Arts, and Cultural Studies
• Mellon New Directions Fellow for project "Toxic Trespass" for advanced training in environmental health and toxicology, 2017-19
  • Announcement:  Toxic Trespass
  • Motivation:  Fighting Cancer Among the Q’eqchi’​
  • Inspiration:  A Clean Start and the Scent of Clean

Networks

Join the Q'eqchi' Scholars Network: Facebook group and/or the listserv

Fragrance Free UCD:  Facebook page and Scent-sitive Aggies discussion group .  See brochures about safer laundry and personal care products.

Courses Taught (with syllabi and Facebook groups)

• NAS 001, Introduction to Native American Studies syllabus and student group
• NAS 133b, Ethnohistory of Native People of Mexico and Central America syllabus and student group
• NAS 121, Corporate Colonialism syllabus and student group
• NAS 123, Native Foods and Farming of the Americas 2023 syllabus and student group
• NAS 212, Community Development for Sovereignty and Autonomy syllabus
• NAS 220, Colonialism, Neoliberalism, and Indigenous Self-Determination (syllabus) and student group
• First Year Seminar:  Toxics in Everyday Life: Green Schools.   student group

Books and films:

Grandia’s first two books concern the agrarian struggles of the Q'eqchi' Maya, Guatemala's second largest indigenous group.

1.  Tz'aptz'ooqeb' (published in Spanish in 2009 by one of Guatemala's leading social science research institutions, AVANCSO) explores the recurring dispossession of the Q'eqchi' people over the past five centuries by the Church, coffee, cattle, conservation, charity, and corporate trade.

2.  Enclosed: Conservation, Cattle and Commerce among the Q’eqchi’ Maya Lowlanders (2012, University of Washington Press) examines in more detail how and why this indigenous group has been driven into conflict with biodiversity conservationists as a result of neoliberal trade and infrastructure projects financed by international development banks across the region.

A film derived from these, "Territory: The Path to our Roots" ("Li Qana'aj: Li B'e Re Xtawb'al li Qaxe"), documents how Q'eqchi' smallholders are losing their parcels to African palm plantations and cattle ranchers in the wake of land administration projects.

Always returning her research to Q'eqchi' communities and leaders, her booklet "And Where To Work?" in Spanish and Q'eqchi', co-authored with community organizers, helped mobilize 159 Q'eqchi' villages in the ACDIP peasant federation into new strategies for territorial defense.  Markus Zander (with GIZ) authored a bilingual Spanish/Q'eqchi' agrarian history of San Luis, "Testimonio de Vida Q'eqchi'" drawing heavily from my Spanish book.  

Engagement:

Liza Grandia has collaborated with ProPetén in Petén, Guatemala since 1993 in the areas of reproductive health, organic agriculture, ethnobotany, gender equity, environmental justice, and agrarian reform and since over the last decade with ACDIP, the Indigenous Peasant Association for Integrated Development of Petén

Across the border in Belize, Dr. Grandia accompanied Maya communities as an expert witness in two constitutional land cases in 2007 and 2010 that resulted in historic rulings in favor of the Q'eqchi' and Mopán Maya plaintiffs. To encourage such collaborative activism between academics and indigenous communities, Dr. Grandia coordinates the Q'eqchi' Scholars Network. Anyone interested in joining this listserv should contact her by email.

Through the Indigenous Research Center of the Americas, she worked with cartographer and graduate students to develop a collaborative map of the historical context of the Dakota Access Pipeline: DOWNLOAD THE STANDING ROCK MAP IN HISTORICAL CONTEXT  or​ Share on social media. 

In her civic life, she founded and coordinates the Woodland Coalition for Green Schools, serves on her town's sustainability advisory committee to the city council, and raises awareness about the hazards of toxics in everyday life as "Professor Canary." 

Recent blogs -short takes on my research and activism

• 2022 (March 17).  "From Risk to Vulnerability: Living Through Long Covid." EnviroSociety, series in complementary popular articles to the Environment and Society journal.
• 2022 (March 17). "What's in a Name."  For UC Davis Public Scholarship and Engagement. 
• 2022 (April 27). "Caves, Cacao, and Conservation Corridors." For UC Davis Public Scholarship and Engagement. 

Major Reports / Monographs:

• 2012.  G. Grünberg, L. Grandia & B. Milian.  "Tierra e Igualdad en Petén, Guatemala."  Report to the World Bank and Government of Guatemala, 156 pp.
  • Download smaller sized file (2 MB) here
  • Download higher-resolution version (42 MB) here
• 2012. (w. M. Ybarra [lead author], O. Obando, and N. B. Schwartz). Tierra, Migración y Vida en Petén, 1999-2009. Guatemala City: CONGCOOP/IDEAR (Coalition of NGO and Cooperatives in Guatemala / Institute of Agrarian and Rural Studies). 106 pages.
• 2001. (lead author with N. Schwartz, A. Corzo, O. Obando and L. Ochoa). Salud, Migración y Recursos Naturales en Petén: Resultados del Módulo Ambiental en la Encuesta de Salud Materno Infantil 1999. Instituto Nacional de Estadística, USAID y Measure/DHS. Guatemala. 176 pp.
• Sarstoon Temash film and monograph series (" Wealth Report," "Stories of the Sarstoon Temash," and "From the Q'eqchi' Kitchen").

Articles and chapters

• 2022.  “Poisonous Exports: Pesticides, Peasants, and Conservation Paradigms in Petén, Guatemala.” Latin American Perspectives 49 (6): 124-52.
• 2022.  "El Parentesco del Despojo, Parábola de Panzós." Prensa Comunitaria, May 2.
• 2021.  "Canary Science in the Mineshaft of the Anthropocene."  Environment and Society: Advances in Research. 12: 203-226.
• 2020.  “Toxic Gaslighting: On the Ins and Outs of Pollution.” Engaging Science, Technology, and Society.  6: 486-513.
• 2020.  "La Muerte Rápida y Lenta del Curanderismo Q'eqchi'."  Debates Indígenas.  1 agosto.  https://debatesindigenas.org/notas/58-muerte-curanderismo.html
• 2020. “Back to the Future: The Autonomous Indigenous Communities of Petén, Guatemala.”  Antípoda. Revista de Antropología y Arqueología 40: 103-127.
• 2020.  “Carpet Bombings: A Drama of Chemical Injury in Three Acts.” Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience 6(1): 1-8.
• 2020.  “Kaxlan Winq y Kaxlan Tzib’ entre la Gente del Quetzal.” Entre el Cielo y Xilbalb’a: Reinvindicación de Derechos Indígenas por las Cuevas Sagradas de los Maya Q’eqchi’es.  Guatemala City:  Asociación Probienestar en Acción Saaq Ach’ool Nimla K’aleeb’al y Agrónomos y Veterinarios Sin Fronteras.
• 2019. “Toxic Tropics: Purity and Danger Everywhere in Everyday Life.” Journal of Ecological Anthropology 21(1): 1-10.
• 2018. “Trickster Ecology:  Climate Change and Conservation Pluralism in Guatemala’s Maya Lowlands"​ In Churches and Cosmologies: Religion, Environment and Social Conflict in Contemporary Latin America. Eds. Evan Berry and Robert Albro. Routledge, New York, pp. 145-172.
• 2018. “Los Restos: Renacimiento y Resiliencia del Pueblo Q’eqchi’ en Petén.” Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades, Revista Centroamericana de Investigación y Postgrado, Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala  5(1): 31-43. 
• 2018 (with J. Hawkins). “Norman B. Schwartz: Antropólogo y Hombre de Maíz (Brooklyn, Nueva York, 1932 - Newark, Delaware, 2018).” Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades, Revista Centroamericana de Investigación y Postgrado, Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala 5(1): 151-54. 
• 2017. "Ecocide in the Americas: Continuities and Connections."  Brújula 1:1-25.
• 2017. "Sacred Maize against a Legal Maze: The Diversity of Resistance to Guatemala's 'Monsanto Law'.”  Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature, and Culture 11(1): 56-85. 
• 2015. "Slow Ethnography: A Hut With a View." Critique of Anthropology, 35(3): 301-17.
• 2014.  “Modified Landscapes: Vulnerabilities to Genetically Modified Corn in the Political Economy of Basic Grain Production in Northern Guatemala.” Journal of Peasant Studies, 41(1): 79-105.  
• 2013. “Road Mapping: Megaprojects and Land Grabs in the Northern Guatemalan Lowlands” for a special volume on “Governing the Global Land Grab,” eds. W. Wolford, S.M. Borras, Jr., R.Hall, I. Scoones, and B. White, Development and Change 44(2): 233-59. 
• 2012. "Imagining a New Wildlife Politics: Conservation Contrarians and Corporate Elephants in the Room." A Review Essay of Rosaleen Duffy’s Nature Crime: How We Are Getting Nature Wrong. Journal of International Wildlife Law and Policy 15(1): 95-114.
• 2010. "Rigoberta Menchú and the Story of All Poor Guatemalans (2008) by David Stoll." Delaware Review of Latin American Studies 11(1):http://www.udel.edu/LAS/Vol11-1Grandia.html
• 2009. "Silent Spring in the Land of Eternal Spring: The Germination of a Conservation Conflict." Current Conservation 3(3): 10-13.
• 2009. "Milpa Matters: Maya Communities of Toledo v. Government of Belize" in Waging War, Making Peace: Reparations and Human Rights, eds. Barbara Rose Johnston and Susan Slyomovics. Walnut Creek, Ca.: Left Coast Press. 153-182.
• 2009. "Raw Hides: Hegemony and Cattle in Guatemala’s Northern Lowlands" in a special edited volume, "Land, Labor, Livestock and (Neo)Liberalism: Historical and Contemporary Transformations in Pastoralism and Ranching," ed. Nathan Sayre. Geoforum 40: 720-31.
• 2007. "Between Bolivar and Bureaucracy: Biodiversity Conservation and the Lost Potential of the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor" in a special edited volume, "Engaging Neoliberal Conservation," eds. Jim Igoe and Dan Brockington, Conservation and Society 5(2): 478-503.

Recent blogs about community-engaged work and public scholarship:

• 2022.  "From Risk to Vulnerability: Living Through Long Covid." Environment and Society. March 17.
• 2022.  "What's In a Name:  How Public Scholarship is Inspiring the People of Guatemala to Fight for Their Land and Future."  UC Davis, Public Scholarship and Engagement, March 17.
• 2022.  "Caves, Cacao, and Conservation Corridors." UC Davis, Public Scholarship and Engagement, forthcoming.

Some op-eds:

• LA Times, January 17, 2019, "Guatemala's democracy is under assault. Again."

• Globe Post, January 14, 2019, "As Guatemala's coup unfolds, US must act to prevent humanitarian crisis."